Songs of Innocence and of Experience

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Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul title page

Songs of Innocence and of Experience is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake.[1] Originally, Blake illuminated and bound Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience separately.[2] It was only in 1795 that Blake combined the two sets of poems into a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.[1] Even after beginning to print the poems together, Blake continued to produce individual volumes for each of the two sets of poetry.[2]

Blake was also a painter before the creation of Songs of Innocence and of Experience and he engraved, hand-printed, and colored detailed art to accompany each of the poems in Songs of Innocence and of Experience.[3] This unique art helps tell the story of each poem, and was part of Blake's original vision for how each poem should be understood.[4] Blake was heavily inspired by children's literature and juvenile education in his creation of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, and his analysis of childhood as a state of protected innocence rather than original sin, but not immune to the fallen world and its institutions, would soon become a hallmark of Romanticism.[2][5]

Notably, there has been an abiding relationship between Songs of Innocence and of Experience and musical artists. Poems from the collection have been set to music by a variety of musicians, and band U2 titled two of their albums Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience in an homage to this volume.[6][7]

Songs of Innocence

Songs of Innocence was originally a complete collection of 23 poems first printed in 1789. Blake etched 31 plates to create the work and produced an estimated seventeen or eighteen copies.[8] This collection mainly shows happy, innocent perception in pastoral harmony, but at times, such as in "The Chimney Sweeper" and "The Little Black Boy", subtly shows the dangers of this naïve and vulnerable state.

Copy G of The Divine Image held at the Yale Center for British Art and printed in 1789

The poems are listed below:[9]

Songs of Experience

Songs of Experience is a collection of 26 poems forming the second part of Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The poems were published in 1794 (see 1794 in poetry). Some of the poems, such as "The Little Girl Lost" and "The Little Girl Found", were moved by Blake to Songs of Innocence and were frequently moved between the two books.[note 1]

The poems are listed below:

Musical settings

Blake's title plate (No. 29) for Songs of Experience

Poems from both books have been set to music by many composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Joseph Holbrooke, John Frandsen, Per Drud Nielsen, Sven-David Sandström, Benjamin Britten, and Jacob ter Veldhuis.[citation needed] Individual poems have also been set by, among others, John Tavener, Victoria Poleva, Jah Wobble, Tangerine Dream, Jeff Johnson, and Daniel Amos.[citation needed] A modified version of the poem "The Little Black Boy" was set to music in the song "My Mother Bore Me" from Maury Yeston's musical Phantom.[citation needed] The folk musician Greg Brown recorded sixteen of the poems on his 1987 album Songs of Innocence and of Experience[10] and by Finn Coren in his Blake Project.

The poet Allen Ginsberg believed the poems were originally intended to be sung, and that through study of the rhyme and metre of the works, a Blakean performance could be approximately replicated. In 1969, he conceived, arranged, directed, sang on, and played piano and harmonium for an album of songs entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake, tuned by Allen Ginsberg (1970).[11]

American composer and producer David Axelrod produced two solo albums, Song of Innocence (1968) and Songs of Experience (1969) which were homages to the mystical poetry and paintings of William Blake.[citation needed]

The composer William Bolcom completed a setting of the entire collection of poems in 1984. In 2005, a recording of Bolcom's work by Leonard Slatkin, the Michigan State Children's Choir, and the University of Michigan on the Naxos label won four Grammy Awards: Best Choral Performance, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Producer of the Year (classical).[12]

The composer Victoria Poleva completed "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" in 2002, a chamber cycle on the verses by Blake for soprano, clarinet and accordion. It was first performed by the ensemble Accroche-Note of France.[citation needed]

Electronic rock group Tangerine Dream based their 1987 album Tyger on lyrics by William Blake.[citation needed]

Irish rock group U2 released an album called Songs of Innocence in 2014, and followed it in 2017 with Songs of Experience.[citation needed]

Karl Jenkins' Motets includes a setting of The Shepherd.[citation needed]

The fictional rock band Infant Sorrow, as featured in the 2008 film Forgetting Sarah Marshall, appears to be named after the Blake poem.[citation needed]

American Singer Songwriter Bob Dylan, mentioned the "Songs OF Experience" in his song "I Contain Multitudes" in his Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020) album.[citation needed]

Facsimile editions

The Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, California, published a small facsimile edition in 1975 that included sixteen plates reproduced from two copies of Songs of Innocence and of Experience in their collection, with an introduction by James Thorpe. The songs reproduced were Introduction, Infant Joy, The Lamb, Laughing Song and Nurse's Song from Songs of Innocence, and Introduction, The Clod & the Pebble, The Tyger, The Sick Rose, Nurses Song and Infant Sorrow from Songs of Experience. Tate Publishing, in collaboration with The William Blake Trust, produced a folio edition containing all of the songs of Innocence and Experience in 2006. A colour plate of each poem is accompanied by a literal transcription, and the volume is introduced by critic and historian Richard Holmes.[citation needed]

William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience edited with an introduction and notes by Andrew Lincoln, and select plates from other copies. Blake's Illuminated Books, vol. 2. William Blake Trust / Princeton University Press, 1991. Based on King's College, Cambridge, copy, 1825 or later.

Songs of Innocence Dover Publications, 1971. Based on copy of Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress, Copy B, ca. 1790.

Songs of Experience Dover Publications, 1984. Based on "a rare 1826 etched edition," per back cover.

Notes

References

  1. ^ a b "Songs of Innocence and of Experience, copy C, 1789, 1794 (Library of Congress): electronic edition". www.blakearchive.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 5 November 2015.
  2. ^ a b c Leader, Zachary (11 August 2015). "Reading Blake's Songs". Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315675121.
  3. ^ Tate. "William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience". Tate. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  4. ^ Zhao, Sinan (19 April 2023). "The Comparison and Fusion of William Blake's Poetry and Paintings". Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences. 12: 78–82. doi:10.54097/ehss.v12i.7602. ISSN 2771-2907.
  5. ^ The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Age of Romanticism. Broadview Press. 2010. ISBN 978-1-55111-404-0.
  6. ^ Hutchings, Kevin (2007). "William Blake and the Music of the Songs". Romanticism on the Net (45). doi:10.7202/015815ar. ISSN 1467-1255.
  7. ^ Greene, Andy (20 September 2017). "Bono on How U2's 'Songs of Experience' Evolved, Taking on Donald Trump". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
  8. ^ "Songs of Innocence". The William Blake Archive. Retrieved 19 August 2023. Blake etched the Songs of Innocence in relief, with white-line work in some designs, on thirty-one plates in 1789, the date on the title page. The first printing, also of 1789, produced seventeen (or possibly eighteen) copies[.]
  9. ^ "Collective Title: Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Bentley Copy F - YCBA Collections Search Search Results". collections.britishart.yale.edu. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
  10. ^ "Greg Brown Discography". Gregbrown.org. Archived from the original on 1 December 2012. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
  11. ^ "PennSound: Ginsberg/Blake". writing.upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 12 November 2012. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
  12. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 February 2011. Retrieved 17 December 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

External links